


Cheating Death

by DisaLanglois



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Strike Back
Genre: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - Freeform, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-08
Updated: 2013-11-08
Packaged: 2017-12-31 07:14:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1028799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisaLanglois/pseuds/DisaLanglois
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Didn't you just <em>die?”</em> Stonebridge shouted at Scott. He could have <em>sworn</em> he just saw Scott fall off the the roof of the train to his death.  How the hell is Scott still alive and kicking, after a fall like that?  </p><p>But Damien Scott seems to have the lives of a cat, and maybe the Apocalypse can still be averted after all?    </p><p>A missing scene from Season 4, Episode 9.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cheating Death

**Author's Note:**

> Just a bit of fluff. (I keep changing the summary.)

The Pale Horse came to a stop at the hedge.  He who rides upon him kicked his feet out of the stirrups, and dismounted in a thunder of black fabric. 

The road was empty.  Beyond the ditch, a railway line slipped off over the curve of the hill.   Death could hear the buzzing of insects.  He ran up his stirrups, and the Pale Horse dropped his big head to graze.

The train was late. 

Death did not have time to wait for late trains.  He had a lot of work to do. The end of the Anthropocene Epoch was approaching, and he was going to have a very busy year seeing it out. 

He needed to have his horse shod, but he supposed he could wait a _little_ longer.  He could retire the old horse to pasture altogether, by the end of the decade.  There would be no more need for anthropomorphic representations, by the end of the decade.  There would be no more need for anthropo- _anything,_ soon.  He could feel the hiss of billions of life-timers, emptying in tandem, all around the globe.

Death reached into his black robes and drew out one of those life-timers. 

He turned it over in his hand, his phalanges clicking against the glass. It wasn’t very old, but it had been badly battered.  The glass was chipped, and one of the little arms guarding the glass had been bent. The name had been rewritten so many times, in line with its owner’s aliases, that the cosmos had replaced it with a sticker on the bottom.  This life-timer had _nearly_ stopped before, so many times, but now it was going to stop for good.  The last few glowing grains in the top bulb were dancing their way down the narrow glass neck to the bottom, one by one. Death raised it to his skull for a closer look. 

NOT LONG NOW, DAMIEN SCOTT.

Death did not truly need to represent himself at this collection, but he had decided to be here anyway.  He had a little time to see to it, before he was swamped with work.  And this man was special.  He was no king, and he certainly was no wizard, but he had eluded Death’s scheduled appointments so many times in the past that Death wanted to see this one done personally.  Damien Scott was not going to slip away from him again; not this time. 

He heard the clomping of hooves in the distance, and turned around.  The Pale Horse raised his head, and whickered a greeting. 

Two more horsemen were approaching along the road. The nearest horse was a snow-white Arab, and the name of him who rode upon the white horse was Pestilence. Pestilence was elegantly and expensively dressed.  His outfit had been hand-tailored by one of the most refined fashion houses in Italy, and was new enough that it had not yet been imitated outside Europe. 

The second horse was a fiery chestnut, and the name of him who rode upon the red horse was Defence. 

Defence was wearing desert camo and body armour today.  Cargo pockets bulged on his trouser legs.  His chest was crossed by bandoliers, stuffed with rifle cartridges, and he carried enough hand-guns on his belt to rob a small bank.  An RPG launcher was tied to the D-rings of his saddle.  His horse was a big-boned Suffolk Punch, stout enough to bear the weight of his master’s weaponry, and seemed to walk with a rolling gait as if aware of his highly explosive rider. 

It was clear to Death why Pestilence was here by the railway line.  He probably had no interest in this battered life-timer, but Pestilence was bound to take an interest in the cargo of the train.  Pestilence had always had an interest in the fevers and contagions of fashion.  He was, in a sense, _always_ this season's index case. 

But Death wondered why Defence was here.  Defence was not going to bring about the end of the Anthropocene.  Perhaps he was simply here for the train itself: Defence had been a _huge_ railway-buff, ever since the American Civil War.

The new arrivals drew rein.  

“Yo!” Defence said, dismounting with the clatter of steel.  “Did we miss it?”

THE TRAIN IS LATE. 

If anything, Death’s voice grew even more sombre, even more grim.  His tone seemed to shift down in the register of gloom, from the sound of an echoing tomb to the hollow, bone-deep groans of despair of a rail commuter. 

“Typical!” Defence said, cheerfully. 

“This is going to be well worth the wait, I promise!” Pestilence said, energetically.  “This is going to be huge! One day, you’re all going to look back, and say, _'I was there'_ when this thing launched.”

I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THERE, Death observed.

“Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re saying. I’ve seen this one before.  Old wine in new bottles!  Boring!  But not like _this_ , you haven’t!  _This_ one is going to go viral.  This one is going to go _global_.  This one is going to be bigger than 1348!  SARS bombed, I admit it, and you just didn't see the right level of enthusiasm for Swine Flu, and I know XDR-TB just doesn’t have much of a _ring_ to it, it's hard to get people excited about a hyphen!  But wait for it!  _This_ one’s going to be the real deal!  Everything you thought you were waiting for in SARS is going to be coming soon to a city near _you!"_  

There was something hovering near Pestilence.  Pestilence was colour-blocking today, black and gold, but there was a glitter in the air over his shoulder that had nothing to do with _haute couture_. 

Death did not frown in puzzlement.  He could not.  He did not have eyebrows.  But the blue flares deep within his eye-sockets narrowed to a glint. 

THERE IS A SMALL DEITY WITH YOU.

Pestilence flicked his fingers elegantly at the sky over his shoulder. 

“Death – may I introduced Shitala, Goddess of Smallpox, sores and general pustules.  Shitala - the Destroyer of Worlds, a very old friend of mine.”

“Hell- _oooo.”_

Death could barely hear her. Shitala had been a powerful deity once.  She had been worshipped all over the world for thousands of years, wherever mankind looked at himself in the mirror and whimpered _'Oh Please God No Not Smallpox.'_   But Shitala had faded after 1977, and her supplicants had abandoned her.  Only a tiny cluster of medical historians and bio-weapons experts still followed her rites.  Now, only a tiny shrill echo of her remained,  clinging to corporeality in the nightmares of their paranoia.

“Shitala’s looking to make her big professional come-back next week!” Pestilence said.  “We've been working together on this for two years! Today's train is just the teaser, just to get the campaign going, just to raise a bit of buzz in the world media. The big season premier is going to kick off at Ramstein Air Base, in a few days.”

QUITE. 

“Then watch out, world!" Pestilence said, "Because Shitala is going to be a _huge star!_   She _has_ what it takes!  Her come-back is going to be huge!  We’re going to use the Internet and mobile media, product placements in _all_ the major airlines, drip marketing…”

“ _Drip_ marketing?” Defence queried.  His wiry grey brows quirked up toward his liver spots. 

“…Product demonstrations!  Word-of-mouth! Direct marketing!  Everything,”  Pestilence continued, flicking his fingers in the air with rising agitation.  His eyes were fever-bright. “We’re aiming for _complete_ market saturation here!  This is going to be the marketing campaign to end all marketing campaigns!  _This_ is going to make what we put together for AIDS look like New Coke!  We. Are. Going. To. Take. The _world!_   By _storm!”_

They certainly _were,_ Death thought.  He could hear the faint hissing of seven billion life-timers, running empty.  And the one still held in his bony phalanges was just the first. 

“Let’s see you take a train compartment _first_ , shall we?” Defence asked, snidely.

Pestilence opened his mouth to retort, but Death and Defence both swivelled at a sound in the distance.  It was the _whoppita-whoppita-whoppita_ sound of a helicopter, approaching fast. 

“ _Here_ we go!” Defence said, rubbing both hands together.  “These guys are in a league of their own.  I’ve been looking forward to making Damien Scott’s acquaintance for years!”

AS HAVE I. 

It was a long passenger train, pulled by a red locomotive.  The helicopter was flying low and parallel to it, keeping pace.  The Horsemen could hear the popping of small arms fire, and then a large golden explosion blossomed out of the top of the train.  Someone had thrown a hand-grenade.

“Jolly good show!” Defence crowed, applauding. "What did I tell you?" 

There were two men on the roof of one of the cargo carriages, wrestling with each other.  As the train drew abreast of where the Three Horsemen stood watching, the man in black lost his balance on the roof _without_ losing his grip on his enemy.  They fell together from the train, flying clear of the rail reserve, and thumped down into a shallow ditch.

Death took out two life-timers.  He watched as the last grain of sand glimmered its way through the neck of each, and dropped into the lower bulb.

The man in black popped up into a sitting position, without noticing that he had left his physical form lying on the grass. 

“Heh-heh- _heeee!_ ” he gloried.  “Fuck me!  I fuckin’ _love_ this job!”  He noticed them watching him, and turned his head to look at them.  “Did you guys see th… _Oh._ ”  His eyes focused on the seven-foot-tall skeleton with the scythe, and then slid on toward the Pale Horse.  His grin inverted itself around his teeth and turned into an expression of dismay.  “You _gotta_ be kidding.”

“Take the one in camo first, will you?” Defence asked Death.   “I want to shake this fellow’s hand.  I’ve been a huge fan for _years._   That Algerian action was _nicely_ done, _nicely_ done indeed…” He moved forward like a coach approaching a fallen player on the field. 

AS YOU WISH.  Death bypassed the man in black, and approached his opponent. 

The spirit of the man in olive-green fatigues rolled over, and sat up.  He put his hands to his head and groaned.  His fingers massaged the memory of a brief cracking pain in his neck. 

ABDALLAH AL-BADRI, Death said. 

The spirit of Al-Badri raised his eyes from his hands and looked up at Death.  And then he looked down at himself, where his own body lay in the sodden grass, with its neck at an unphotogenic angle.  There are some facts that are so incontrovertible that they cross all cultural boundaries, instantly, and without fear of miscommunication. 

“Oh.  I’m dead.”

YES, Death agreed.

On the other hand, there are some facts which arrive in one’s understanding filtered through a whole life-time’s worth of cultural expectations. 

“I am a martyr!” Al-Badri realized.  His expression was beginning to brighten, even as his shade started to fade away. 

I AM GLAD YOU LIKE IT.  The scythe swung, and the glimmering line connecting Al-Badri to his corpse snapped.  

“Where are my virgins?” 

THAT… IS A QUESTION WHICH ONLY YOU CAN ANSWER...

  Death saw Al-Badri off on his long walk through the other plane of reality, and then turned to the other man who had fallen off the train.  Defence had been squatting down next to him.  They had been whispering urgently while Death collected the spirit of Al-Badri.  As Death approached, Defence stood up and backed away, but Damien Scott stayed right where he was, sitting on the grass. 

DAMIEN SCOTT, Death said, YOUR HOUR HAS COME.  COME WITH ME.

“No.”  Scott folded both arms across his equipment pouches, and set his jaw.  His mouth was set in a firm line. “I’m not going.” 

Oh, _dear_.  Death was familiar with soldiers who did not want to leave their units, but he still did not understand it.  Soldiers seemed to spend all their time _complaining_ about the war and the Army.  They complained and complained about where they were and what they were doing.  The default mental state for all soldiers seemed to be miserable, but when he explained to them that they had escaped from their situation, almost without exception they didn't want to go.

I BELIEVE YOU MISUNDERSTAND, DAMIEN SCOTT.  YOU HAVE FALLEN IN BATTLE.  YOU ARE K.I.A. YOU ARE DECEASED.

“I’m not going.”  Scott didn’t budge.  He glared angrily. 

BEING DEAD IS NOT OPTIONAL. 

“Tell someone who gives a fuck!  I haven’t run away from a fight yet, and I’m not going to fucking start now! I’m not going.”

YOU ARE DEAD, Death said.  THE FALL FROM THE TRAIN KILLED YOU.

“Dead schmead.  I’m not going.”

From the glimmering depths of Death’s memory, a line bobbled up to the surface of his mind. He grasped it for support. 

FOR YOU, he intoned,  THE WAR IS OVER. 

It had no effect.  “Like hell it is!”  Scott barked.  His jaw was stuck out aggressively, and his mouth was pursed tightly.  “My buddy is still on that train! I’m not leaving him behind!  I'm not going.”

YOU _MUST_ CROSS TO THE OTHER SIDE. 

“Fuck you!”  Damien Scott jabbed an angry index finger at him.  “And fuck _must._   I’m not going _anywhere_ I don’t wanna go.  And you can’t make me. You try to pick me up, asshole, and we’ll see if those bones of yours _break_.”

Death paused.  He was _fairly_ sure his bones were not breakable, but he was dealing with someone whose whole career had been built out of breaking bones.  This wasn’t going the way it was supposed to go. A seven-foot-tall skeleton with a scythe was standing above Damien Scott, thoroughly disproving anything a lifetime of atheism might have taught him to expect, but the damned man wasn't budging. 

I AM DEATH, DESTROYER OF WORLDS.  YOU _DARE_ DEFY ME? 

“I don’t care if you’re the Pope! I’m not leaving my buddy in a fight!  How's he going to stop the train by himself? He can't stop a _cheque_ without my help!  Dude _needs_ me!” 

YOU CANNOT INFLUENCE THE OUTCOME OF THIS FIGHT. 

“Wanna fucking bet?”  Scott blazed fiercely. 

Scott should have been fading away, coming apart from the mortal world as the comprehension of his new state settled into his mind.  Instead he was as solid as he’d been when he’d flown off the train.  He was holding onto the mortal realm with the mulish grasp of the violently stupid.  He _understood_ perfectly well that he was dead, but he was just going to kick back at the fact indefinitely until Death got tired of waiting, and left him here. 

ANOTHER ONE OF _YOU_ , Death said, disgustedly. 

“Can we move this along a little bit?” Pestilence asked, annoyed.  “Only, pandemics are delicate beasties, and the timing has to be _just right_. The teaser has to happen at _just_ the right moment, or the momentum is lost!”

NO.

“Come on!  I’m on a schedule here!  You,” Pestilence said to Defence.  “Help us out here, won’t you?  This idiot _is_ one of yours!”

“He’s not _mine,_ ” Defence said.  “He stopped being _mine_ the instant he fell off the train.  He's Death's now.”

"No, I'm fuckin' not," Scott said.  

“The train!”  Pestilence said.  “The train is getting away!”

“The train isn’t going to disappear, man!” Defence snapped.  “It runs on _rails._ "

WE CAN MEET THE TRAIN IN FRANKFORT AS SOON AS WE ARE DONE HERE, Death said. 

“No, you’re fucking not!” Scott barked. “You’re not meeting that train _anywhere_ in a residential area!” 

THE TRAIN IS NO LONGER YOUR CONCERN.

“ _Hell_ , yeah it is!  I’m not going!  You can’t make me.  _You_ tell him,” he gestured to Defence with a jerk of his jaw, “he can’t _make_ me go, can he?”

“He can't make you go, if you would rather stay here,” Defence said.  

“I’m _staying_.”  Scott ground his teeth together, and stared fixedly at Death. "It's _my_ awfully big adventure, I'll do it how I want to!"

YOU ARE _DEAD,_ Death said.  YOU CANNOT COME BACK TO LIFE.  IF YOU REMAIN HERE, YOU WILL BECOME TRAPPED BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH. YOU WILL BE PINNED BETWEEN THE WORLDS.  A GHOST. 

“Fine, then I’ll be a ghost.  I can float around watching Mikey’s back and going _WooOOOooo_.  I’ll just stick around and wait for him, as long as it takes." 

THAT WILL BE A LONG WAIT, Death warned.  YOU WILL FADE AWAY TO NOTHING LONG BEFORE THAT HAPPENS.

Scott’s eyebrows twitched up.  “Oh, yeah?  How long?” 

Perhaps _here_ was Death’s chance to persuade Damien Scott to go gently into that good night.  Death reached into his robes, felt around inside the thick folds of existence for the life-timer marked Michael Rodney Stonebridge, and took it out. 

THIS IS HIS LIFE-TIMER.  IT HAS MANY MORE YEARS IN IT.  He held it up.

Scott pursed his lips and craned his head forward slightly to see.  He narrowed his eyes.  “Nope.  I’m not convinced.”

THERE IS HIS NAME UPON THE BASE.  LOOK.  SEE? 

“Yeah, but how do I _know_ that’s what many years looks like, huh?  You must think I’m stupider than the average bear, if you think I’m gonna take _your_ word for it.” 

The little blue fires inside Death’s bony eye-sockets went out for a second.  Then they came back, and he reached back into his robe with his other hand. 

VERY WELL, IF YOU INSIST, Death sighed.  HERE IS _YOUR_ LIFE-TIMER.  COMPARE THEM.  YOURS IS EMPTY.  SEE? 

He held out the battered life-timer so that Scott could see it.

The handgun sprang up from behind Scott, and the shot cracked.  Death jerked away, but his bony phalanges found themselves grasping empty air.  The life-timer had exploded into a million shards of glass.  

The spirit of Damien Scott vanished, sucked back into his own flesh in an instant. 

“Good _shot!_ ” Defence whooped, banging his palms together.  “Well _done!_   Yes!  _Yes!_   I _knew_ you could do it, boy!  Hooo-Raaaah!” 

Death stared at his hand.  Scott’s life-timer was already reconstituting itself.  The cosmos did not like a vacuum, and it was already reversing the polarity to fill it up.  The shards of glass were already sifting from the folds of Death’s sleeve, and spinning into two globes of glowing light.  The cloud of sand was orbiting around his wrist, coalescing like a miniature solar system back into the life-timer again.  He watched as the top and bottom caps reappeared, and closed themselves around the glass bulbs with a little _pop!_

A moment later, he held the life-timer of Damien Scott in his hand again.  He gave it a little shake, and held it up close to his face.  There was sand in _both_ bulbs now.  

DAMN.

Defence was still bobbling on his feet, delighted.  “That was well played!  Very well played!  Don’t you think?  I told you he was good!”

NO.  I DO NOT THINK IT WAS _WELL PLAYED_.  I THINK SOMEONE _CHEATED._

Just beyond them, on the other side of the fragile skim that separated their plane from the mortal world, Damien Scott was moving.  He was jerking his limbs in the muddy grass, and making agonized grunting sounds.  Being alive _hurt_.  The train, and the helicopter, had long since passed out of sight. 

Pestilence, on _this_ side of the barrier of reality, was starting to dig through the pockets of the Milan coat with frantic fingers.  “No, no, no, no!” he muttered, shrilly.  “No, no, no!  I can _not_ be- _lieve_ you just _did_ that!”

“I didn’t do anything,” Defence protested.  

“It’s gone, it’s all gone!”  Pestilence pulled a test-tube, corked with wax, out of one of his deep pockets and held it up.  His eyes bugged. 

“No!” he wailed, and shook the tube as if shaking it would fill it up.  “I worked on this smallpox pandemic for two years!  It’s gone!  It’s all gone!” 

“What do you mean, it’s _gone?_ ”

“Look at my lovely plague!” Pestilence held out the tube and flailed it at Defence.  “It was full!  _Full!_   Now there are just a handful of cases in there!  My plague!  My lovely plague!  How could you _do_ that to me?  I worked on that for two years!” 

"I think your plague is FUBAR," Defence shrugged his shoulders.  "Isn't that just too bad?" 

Death realized that the soft background hiss that had been following him for two years had suddenly stopped.  Billions of life-timers had been running through their last grains of sand … and now they were not.  Death reached into his robe, and selected at random a teenager in Seoul.  The top globe had been nearly empty just a few minutes ago.  It was now nearly full. 

A few feet away, Damien Scott was staggering to his feet, and setting out in pursuit of the apocalyptic train.

It appeared that the end of the Anthropocene Epoch had been cancelled.  The world would continue to need anthropomorphic representations for a few more eons.  Death put the life-timer back through the planes of reality without a word.   He would have to have his horse shod again, after all. 

“Sergeant Scott fired the shot, not me,” Defence was protesting to Pestilence who was vibrating with fury.  Shitala was shrieking like an angry mosquito, but she already seemed weaker than she had been before. 

“You _did_ something! I _know_ you did!” Pestilence shouted at him feverishly.  “I’m not _ever_ talking to you, ever again, _ever!_ ”  He threw the test-tube at Defence.  It fell to the grass, and glittered there. 

“And _you_ ," Pestilence screamed at Death.  "You just stood there!  You’re supposed to help us!  This is supposed to be your big moment!”

I CANNOT EMPTY A LIFE-TIMER OF MY OWN ACCORD, Death said.  THAT IS NOT THE DUTY.  TO ALL THINGS A SEASON, AND THE DUTY IS BUT TO COLLECT.

“Besides!” Defence said to Pestilence.  “You’ve still got the train, haven’t you?  That’s more smallpox than you’ve had since 1977!  You should be _happy._ ”

“You’re each as bad as each other!”  Pestilence screamed at him.  He spun on his calfskin boots and flounced away to his white horse. Shitala went with him, whirling shrilly about his head like a despairing gnat.

The remaining two Horsemen watched him go in silence. 

“Well, my friend,” Defence said.  “This has been a day for the record books, but I must be off.  Syria is still waiting for me.”  Defence rubbed his hands together, happily, for all the world as if he’d accomplished something clever.  “I’m going to try to arrange a three-way split down there.  Three-way wars are _so_ much fun, don't you think?  I can’t _wait_ to see who wins.”

YOU _CHEATED_ , Death said.

"Did I?"  Defence gathered the reins of his horse, and ran down his stirrups.

HIS OWN WEAPONS COULD NOT HAVE HARMED THE LIFE-TIMER.  YOU GAVE HIM _YOUR_ PISTOL. 

 Defence paused, and pressed his hand to a holster that _might_ recently have held a 9-mil semi-automatic pistol.  "Oh, look at that, I must have dropped it.  I didn't even notice."

YOU INTERFERED IN THE LIVES OF MORTALS.  THAT IS CHEATING.

"Well, you see, old boy, _that’s_ where you and I differ,” Defence confided.  “I'm not supposed to _stop_ them fighting! _I'm_ supposed to _keep_ them fighting, as long as I can.  And I've just put this game into ... extra time."    He wriggled his eyebrows up and down, suggestively.  "Don't tell me you _want_ to see old Pestilence winning the whole game all at once?" 

Death looked in the direction the train had gone.   I VISIT _ALL_ MORTALS, he said. _EVENTUALLY._  

"You have your duty, and I have mine." 

The blue glow in just one eye socket dimmed briefly, and came back.  EXTRA TIME.  BUT FOR NOW, I HAVE A TRAIN TO CATCH.

 

 


End file.
